Johanna Garth is the author of The Persephone Campbell Series; a modern take on the myth of Hades and Persephone. Johanna lives in McLean, Virginia with her husband and two children.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

The Neverending To-Do List

Memorial Day Weekend, summer, bowling with buddies, early June birthdays, piano recital and the school sponsored Rose Show are just a few of the things that are making me hyperventilate this week.

We were out of town last weekend and spent some (long overdue) time catching up with family and overeating. Isn't that what most families do when they get together? Anyway, now I'm back and I'm trying not to stress. There are groceries to be purchased, laundry to be done, Twitter feeds to be analyzed, blogs to visit, emails to write and respond to and OMG in the middle of writing this list I just remembered that I forgot to trim Child #1's fingernails and will now be made to suffer the consequences at the hands of her piano teacher!

Oh yeah, and there's the book. The second book in the Persey Campbell series is Losing Hope and, as of this morning, I've written 44,000 words of it which means I'm almost half done. That's good but not good enough because I was really hoping to be a little farther along before summer vacation.

Which is yet another thing to hyperventilate about. All my progress is about to screech to a halt because in a little over two weeks (12 school days) the children will be back. When am I going to write? I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. Yes, I'm a little panicky! Here's my current plan. Get up at 6:00 every morning and write until 7:30. Answer emails, blog, tweet and everything else during the two hours I spend every morning while the kids attend swim team practice. Will it work? I'm not sure. Have I mentioned I'm not much of a morning person, or a night owl? I'm more of a 9:00-6:00 person...perfectly suited to a day job!

Ideas? Would love to hear them. How do you squeeze in your uninterrupted writing time?

9 comments:

I wake up (5am) get ready and head to work. I have a 30 minute window in which I'll blog and write (15 minute on each or 30 for writing). Then I work 7-4. I come home and make dinner, take out the garbage, feed the animals, hang out with my husband and have about a two hour window, one in which I'll write and the other in which I blog.

Did I mention that's on a glorious day? 9 times out of 10 it does not happen that way.

What if I took out the day job? Life would be utter bliss, alas I'm stuck with this so I'll make it work.

PS - If I had a book called Losing Hope I'd lose my mind while writing it... I would constantly feel like I was literally losing hope. I guess it's a good thing I write stories like 30 Guys in 30 Days or In the Mind of a Celebrity Stalker. Keeps me grounded... i think.

I wish I had good advice for this one...especially since I am now more than halfway done with Losing Beauty...and can't wait to go back to the gym tomorrow so I can read some more...but I really hope you figure out when to write because I want that next book!!!!!(seriously...please go write some more!)

You can do it! I can relate, A LOT! I actually have my kids with me all the time, because I homeschool. So I can attest to the schedule that you have planned. I wake up at 5am, work out, then sit and write until 7:30 or 8am. After lunch 1ish, I take a 30 min. nap and at 3 pm I sit down on the computer to do emails, blogs, etc. Good Luck!!! S.B. NiccumAuthor WebsiteBlog